The Morning Star

ABORIGINAL groups condemned Australia’s acting prime minister today for comparing the Black Lives Matter movement with the riot at the US Capitol building last week. On Monday Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, filling in for Prime Minister Scott Morrison who is away on holiday, said on Monday that the Washington DC insurrection that claimed five lives was “similar to those race riots that we saw around the country last year.” “Amnesty International and others — and I appreciate there are a lot of people out there who are being a bit bleeding-heart about this and who are confecting outrage — but they should know those lives matter too,” Mr McCormack told reporters on Tuesday. Amnesty International Australia’s indigenous rights lead Nolan Hunter said that Mr McCormack was “continuing to show his ignorance about what Black Lives Matter means and how it affects our mob right here in Australia.” “Ignorance of the issues that affect indigenous people in Australia is why we are behind the rest of the world and lock up little children as young as 10, [and] why indigenous children are 27 times more likely to end up in prison than their non-indigenous peers,” Mr Hunter said on Tuesday. The Aboriginal Legal Service of New South Wales state tweeted: “It’s a disappointment (to say the least) to see the Acting PM mischaracterise our fight for justice as ‘race riots.’” “Our demand that black lives be valued and defended against state-sanctioned violence is in no way comparable to attempts to violently overthrow an election,” it added.